BOOK: Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor, 206 pages

Man Booker Challenge: shortlisted 1971; Four Month Challenge: book written in the 70s (any century); New Author

First of all, it's not that Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor the author, 1912 - 1975, was British and wrote twelve novels and four short story collections. This Elizabeth Taylor has written a bittersweet story about aging, and loneliness, and finding friendship.

Mrs Palfrey first came to the Claremont Hotel on a Sunday afternoon in January. Who goes to a hotel to live? Widows and widowers of a certain class and money, whose family won't take them in. Laura Palfrey and the others who live year round in the Claremont have their own appearances and habits to keep up, but they are in many ways just in a holding pattern, waiting to be moved to a nursing home, as they can't die in the hotel but are hanging on to their independence. Laura meets Ludo, a young writer, when she falls one day outside his home. She sees in him the attention her own grandson doesn't pay her, and he sees in her a character for his novel. They develop a friendship of sorts. Early on, it made me a little nervous that Ludo would be mean to Mrs Palfrey, or use her, and I didn't want anything too terrible to happen to Mrs Palfrey. It wasn't that she was too sweet, because she was human with good and bad qualities, but I liked her, her mix of cautiousness and recklessness as she navigated her new life.

I call this bittersweet because it was both. There were some amusing scenes, but the underlying sadness in the lives of the characters is always present. The life they construct in the hotel, with their rituals and the inevitable hierarchy of social standing were so clearly written. There have been new releases of many of Taylor's novels that I would like to read. I enjoyed her writing style and characterizations. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont has also been made into a movie starring Joan Plowright.

also reviewed:
laura at musings
care at care's online bookclub

CHALLENGE: Complete Booker Challenge

The Complete Booker is a blog for readers interested in reading the Man Booker prize books. It is a perpetual project to read the winner, short-listed, and long-listed books. Laura, the organizer, has decided to host a little reading challenge to provide a little incentive to people. More details and sign-up here. There are several levels to pick from. Some people are so hard-core, they are going to try all the levels. I'm not that crazy hard-core, I'm just going to try to read some of the winning books I have already bought and are sitting in my home.

the challenge runs from January 1 - December 31, 2010.

There are several levels of participation:

Winners Circle: read at least 6 winners
Contender: read at least 6 shortlisted nominees
Longshot: read at least 6 longlisted nominees
Booker Devotee: choose a year, and read all 6 shortlisted works from that year
Booker Fanatic: choose a year, and read all 13 long- and shortlisted works from that year

• Overlaps with other challenges are permitted.
• Book selections don't have to be posted right away, and lists may be changed at any time.
• SIGN UP using Mr. Linky below. Please link directly to a specific post about this challenge.
• Post your reviews

The first Man Booker challenge was hosted by Dewey, and I still have the button from that challenge. That was two years ago now. Sigh. I don't think she'd mind if I reuse this.

Here's my list of hopeful reads for next year:
Winners Circle

1. The English Patient 1992
   
2. The True History of the Kelly Gang 2001
   
3. Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre 2003 02/25
   
4. How Late it Was, How Late 1994
   
5. The Line of Beauty 2004
   
6. ? 2010 winner

If I decide to read shortlisted, these are the Contenders:

1. The Bookshop, Penelope Fitzgerald 1978
2. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor 1971
3. The Secret River - Kate Grenville 2006
4. The Glass Room - Simon Mawer 2009
5. Room - Emma Donaghue short list 2010
   
6. shortlist 2010 ? The Long Song - Andrea Levy

Here's a longshot list, if I decide to go this way, because I like lists:

1. What Was Lost, Catherine O'Flynn 2007
2. February, Lisa Moore 2010
3. Trespass, Rose Tremain 2010
4. 
   

BOOK: Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, 340 pages (Large Print)

Man Booker Longlist 2009

Eilis is the youngest daughter in a small village in Ireland. Her sister Rose has a job and looks after their mother but there isn't much for Eilis to do. She probably never imagined she could have a life any different than the one she was living. Rose arranges for Eilis to emigrate to Brooklyn, and gets a job and room arranged for Eilis. The first third of the book describes Eilis' life up to arriving in NY, and then the next two thirds are the adapting that she has to go through.

Poor Eilis! She was a naive, simple girl who was thrust into a whole new world, with no real options. And yet, she was strong willed in doing what she needed to. She was very concerned with behaving or speaking in a way so as not to upset anyone around her. This lead to the feeling that she was not smart or selfish, but at the same time, she was very aware of the decisions she made, and she wouldn't be pushed around, unless she was aware of it, and then it was her choice, so she really wasn't being pushed around. I felt so bad for her, alone in a new country, learning to fit in, with no friends for quite a while.

There was a lot of similar overtones to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for me, - the Irish immigrant experience, but I preferred Brooklyn. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was only okay for me. Eilis was a very strong character, well written with a lot of depth to her. Toibin writes in a nice, easy manner and I would be interested in reading another novel by him. This didn't make the short list for the Man Booker, but I am very pleased I read it.

BOOK: Love and Summer by William Trevor

Love and Summer by William Trevor, 212 pages

Man Booker Longlist 2009; Published in 2009

opening line:
On a June evening some years after the middle of the last century Mrs Eileen Connulty passed through the town of Rathmoye: from Number 4 The Square to Magennis Street, into Hurley Lane, along Irish Street, across Cloughjordan Road to the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer. Her night was spent there.

Mrs Connulty may have died as the book begins, but her reach travels all through the book, and her presence is still in the town. Her two children are inheriting her positions in town. A stranger arrives in town, taking pictures at the funeral, and makes friends with a young married girl. The back story on all the characters was well done, and enlightening as to their choices and decisions. Trevor allows us to meet the people and get an impression, and then he lets us see where they came from and why they are they way they are. As I try to summarize the plot and characters, I realize how much Trevor has packed into this short book, while evoking a time and place of Ireland. A lot of sad lives, but they don't even realize that they are sad for the most part.

Well-written, lots left unsaid, interesting characters - I can understand why this is on the Booker longlist, but I would still prefer to read the same story told by Maeve Binchy. It's just the kind that she would write - small town, nosy and judgemental characters, adultery, and difficult decisions. It is fun to watch all the developments and hope for some characters, but I like a little more expository to the plot. In the end, I am ambivalent to the book - I neither liked nor disliked it; it just didn't match my head.

I expect that there would be many people who would like this, so I don't want to dissuade anyone. I haven't read any William Trevor books before and this doesn't put me off them. I read this just after a historical fiction(In the Company of the Courtesan) and just before an extremely suspenseful, plot driven book(No Time for Goodbye), and it just didn't stand out, but it does a good job of what it is supposed to be - observing, describing, a slice of Irish life.


also reviewed at literary license, jackie at farmlanebooks

BOOK: Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

Man Booker longlist 2008

A great crime thriller that had me staying up waaay too late last night as we raced across Russia, escaped from a train headed to The Gulags, and hunted down a serial killer of children. Whew! It was quite a ride, and a provided a look at Stalin's Soviet Russia in the 1950s.


Lots of examining the political structure, where the State is all and anything can be easily misconstrued, and friends and neighbours disappear after the suggestion of evil, or treason. Leo works for the predecessor of the KGB, so he knows exactly how the system works - presumed guilty is the first response, and once accused, there is no escape, because just the hint of treason is enough to ruin a man or woman. There is no crime, only infiltrators from the West trying to take down Stalin. Murders aren't investigators - criminals confess. It makes it difficult for Leo to begin to search for what he believes is a serial killer, because all crime have been solved previously, so if he suggests that there is a serial killer, it means innocent people have been killed, and that the State made a mistake. And that definitely didn't happen.

This year the judges have been asked by booksellers to select more accessible books for the Man Booker longlist. They hit the mark with this one. Politics, crime, interesting characters, action, great twisting plot. I haven't finished Les Miserables yet, but there was a hint of the Javert/Valjean revenge aspect with Leo and Vasili, if we want a classical allusion to make the book seem more Booker-ish. Hell, it was just a great read.

BOOK: Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

Booker Prize 1984

After I read Brookner's biography at wikipedia, I began to wonder how autobiographical this novel was. Edith Hope, a novelist of a certain age, has come to the Hotel du Lac in Switzerland following an 'unfortunate' incident in London. She has never married and is spending her exile examining her single life and what type of person she is. The other women at the hotel are also in a form of exile, and Edith examines their lives and motives as well. Brookner never married and looked after her parents. I imagine this book was a cathartic examination of her life and place in society as well.

This is a quiet little book full of atmosphere, questioning roles in society, and the relationships between men and women. I enjoyed its slow pace and simple story, but there is a lot of layers to it and you could get a lot more out of it if you are a person who likes to read deeper. I don't often, but the surface story was good as well and I liked the setting of Switzerland and the old hotel and its levels of society. And at 184 pages, it was the perfect length. I don't know that I would read it and think it was a prize winning novel, but I can also see the elements of literature that would place this in Booker contention.

CHALLENGE: Man Booker Challenge Update

Done another one!

• The Remains of the Day - Ishiguru '89 Winner


• Life and Times of Michael K - Coetzee '83 Winner


• The Gathering - Anne Enright '07 Winner


• Atonement - Ian McEwan (book awards) '02 shortlist


• In the Country of Men - Hisham Matar (notable) '06 shortlist


• Mister Pip - Lloyd Jones (Orbis Terrarum) '07 shortlist
  

The best of this group was Remains of the Day and the least likable was Life and Times of Michael K.

Thanks to Dewey for hosting this challenge to read 6 books, either winners or shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. I decided to split the challenge and did 3 winners and 3 short list. I will still keep reading these, because the Booker lists appeal to me for some reason. There is a lot more action to do with Bookers over at the Booker Project - trying to read all the Booker Winners, in however long it takes you.

BOOK: In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar

In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar

Man Booker challenge (shortlist 2006); African Reading challenge (Libya); Orbis Terrarum challenge; notable book challenge

I usually try not to use the same book for too many challenges, but this one took me so long to read I am going to use it where ever I can. It is a well lauded book; the cover lists all sorts of important awards it was nominated for, but it just didn't resonate with me.

Suleiman narrates his story from his nine year old point of view, which is accurate if you think that nine year olds don't really know what is going on, so neither does the reader. His father is away on business, his mother is 'ill' and requires lots of medicine from the pharmacy. Poor Suleiman can only relate from his perspective, but it left me feeling as confused as a nine year old. The writing was good in that sense. There is also a revolution going on in 1979 Libya, and people are disappearing. Is his father going to be next? Did his father betray they neighbour? There is some Oedipal stuff going on with the love for his mother, and he is trying to be a man but he is simply a kid.

I just didn't get it mostly, but I didn't dislike it. It was one of those books where I know there is more going on, but I couldn't see it. It might make a better discussion book, or if it had Spark notes to go with it so I could read about the symbolism and themes. I don't claim to be very good at seeing the levels in a book. It's so, literary. And lots of people like that in their books, so I don't want to put any one off, but it wasn't enough of a page turner for me. I liked the view of Libya and seeing what life was like in that African country.

If you have also reviewed this book, leave me a link in the comments, so others can see another point of view.

BOOK: The Gathering by Anne Enright

The Gathering by Anne Enright

Man Booker Challenge (winner 2007), notable books challenge

I liked this book. I've read reviews that found this depressing and miserable, but it wasn't that bad. Perhaps it's a cultural thing. My paternal descendants are all Irish, way back, but in the Maritimes, we still claim that heritage regardless of how many hundreds of years ago those poor starving ancestors left Ireland. Part of the reason is that the Irish struck together over here, like the French and the Scottish, so that my father's generation was the first to marry non-Irish. He's from a relatively large family as well, so I am familiar with the large family saga, where you are related to people and know them, while you may not actually know them at all, but having met once, you have that connection, that shared heritage.

The other reason I liked this book was the connection I felt to the narrator. She's a woman about my age (she's 39) and her life is fine, no reason to be unhappy, but she's beginning to question her life and her family. Middle age angsty stuff. Veronica recognizes that she has no reason to be unhappy, but she is spiraling downward after the suicide of her closest brother. She tries to look into her past and her brother's to see where things went wrong with Liam and herself. Her memories are all tossed together with her siblings and they were more realistic described than the minutely detailed memories that occur in some memoirs. For example, she remembers the time she was eight and staying at her grandmother's and she ate a plastic flower. The flower came out it the diaper, but she was eight, so it must have been her little sister who did that, but she thought the story was about her. Lots of real touches like that.

So in conclusion, without going into any more detail, I didn't mind the depressing stuff because I recognize it. Irish stories are often depressing (You've read Angela's Ashes? My dad recognized his childhood, to a lesser degree) and I get it. I liked the writing as well, and can see why this was the winner for the Man Booker last year. There are still some things I found a little vague, so I am looking forward to the discussion with my book group about this book. I think there is a lot to discuss after reading this book.

BOOK: Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

Orbis Terrarum (New Zealand), Man Booker Challenge (shortlist 2007)

This is my second book this year with many references to Dickens' Great Expectations ( Lost in a Good Book had Mrs Havisham as a major character) and I am feeling like I've read the book with out having to have actually read the book. I am not sure what I expected from this book, but the devastation during war, and the lost of innocence portrayed was a little surprising. My naivete also rose up, as life on the Pacific island of Bourgainville in 1992, was shockingly primitive and the war that raged there was unknown to me.

Matilda narrates her tale during this wartime, her battles with her mother, and her introduction to Great Expectations by Mr Watts, the only white man in their village who acts as a teacher. There are some abrupt changes in mood, necessitated by Matilda's view as an adult looking back at the events as a way to understand them. The rebels and the red faced guerrillas both wreck havoc on the village and the people living there.

This is one of those books where I sense there are big ideas being discussed at a different level, but I am missing them. I still enjoyed the book and the view of a much different life and the connections to Great Expectations. Some classic books seem so important that they lend themselves to other books written around them. That's pretty impressive for Mr Dickens. So far I'd say this was the strongest of the short list contenders for last year's Man Booker, ahead of On Chesil Beach and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, both of which were good, but underwhelming. Next will be the winner - The Gathering, so I'm getting a good taste of the nominated books.

also reviewed by: katrina here and marg here

BOOK: Atonement by Ian McEwan

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Book Awards Reading Challenge: NBCC 2002 winner, Man Booker Challenge (shortlist 2001)

If I am going to see clips at the Academy Awards ceremony about this movie, I want to know what the book is about without the ending being given away. This is also a book from the shortlisted books of the Man Booker Prize.

From the cover:
On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge.

By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

I copied the plot summary from the cover because I don't want to give anything away. I've been carefully avoiding reviews of this book for the past few months so as not to know anything I shouldn't know. All I knew was that it had 'an ending'. And I loved the ending. I won't say any more than that, but I know some people who were disappointed by the ending.

There are three sections to this book: 1934 when the event occurs, Robbie's trek across France during the war, and Briony in present day. I found the war section went on a little too long, but other wise, I sped through this book, reading great chunks at a time and anxious to find out how it ended. McEwan writes great prose, builds suspence, but a little too much with the colours and descriptions at times, but the story moved along nicely, and I've enjoyed my time in prewar England this weekend. It feels good to read a book I've been meaning to read for quite a while, and that it didn't disappoint.

BOOK: The Remains of the Day by Kazou Ishiguro

The Remains of the Day by Kazou Ishiguro

1989 Booker Winner, 1980s decade, Man Booker Challenge

I haven't seen the movie, but I would like to now. This quiet book is the memoirs of Stevens, proper butler to Darlington Hall from the 1930s to his present day 1956. Ishiguro has written an amazing book in that this is a character study of the main character, told in first person narrative, and the man has no inner thoughts, a completely flat character. It is completely sad how removed from himself he is without even realizing it. But the book is genius.

Stevens has lived his whole life as a butler and he is very invested in being the best butler, to the point that he has no relationships with anyone - his father, Miss Kenton, or anyone. He doesn't think critically about any decisions of his boss, who, it comes out, was quite the Nazi sympathizer before World War 2.

Later in life, he seems to feel that bantering is a skill he should acquire, as part of his repertoire of a good butler. But bantering doesn't come easily to him. This is typical of his interactions with other people. It is particularly sad when he retells events with Miss Kenton, the housekeeper. He keeps his emotions so bottled up, under the guise of professionalism, that he cannot even offer condolences or talk of anything that is not to do with the job.

Ishiguro offers a view of life in the upper classes in England, and what life may have been like 'on the job'. And he does such a great job of exposing Stevens character without saying anything, especially the parts that Stevens isn't even aware of. Ishiguro is on my list of potential favorite authors now, with two books (Never Let Me Go) that have impressed me.

CHALLEGE: Man Booker Challenge

Dewey must believe in that old adage 'good things occur in threes' because she is hosting three challenges for next year. Yes, I said three. I'm most interested in the Man Booker Challenge, but she is also hosting a Graphic Novels Challenge and The Printz Award Challenge, for young adult novels. The Printz one will stay on my radar because I signed up for Joy's Young Adult Challenge, so I'll have to look into that a bit more. The Man Booker Challenge is to read 6 books that were winners or short listed for the Man Booker Award.

I already planned to read the following Booker Winners for the Booker Challenge and Bookers are one of my categories for the 888 challenge:

• Amsterdam - McEwan
• The Remains of the Day - Ishiguru
• The Life and Times of Michael K - Coetzee
• Disgrace - Coetzee
• The True History of the Kelly Gang
• The English Patient
• Last Orders - Graham Swift
• The Gathering - Anne Enright
• Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner

Maybe I'll just read 6 shortlisted books. Books from the short list that intrigue me include:

• The Night Watch - Sarah Waters (chunkster)
• Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell (1% well read)
• Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood (end of the world)
• Family Matters - Rohinton Mistry (1% well read)
• Atonement - Ian McEwan (book awards)
• In the Country of Men - Hisham Matar (notable)
• Mister Pip - Lloyd Jones (Orbis Terrarum)
  

I can easily read 6 from this list of books.

challenge wrap up here